


Memory

by Onyxed



Series: Awaken My Darling [2]
Category: Sanditon (TV 2019), Sanditon - Jane Austen
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:14:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28845900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onyxed/pseuds/Onyxed
Summary: Continuation of my fic 'Awaken My Darling' the archive warnings from above refer to the previous fic.A series of one-shots about Allison and her life after the events of AMD (#treefic). Raising her niece with Sidney, redefining her relationship with Stringer and generally getting her life back.note: this is a companion piece so it will not make sense unless you've read the first fic.
Relationships: Alison Heywood/James Stringer, Charlotte Heywood/Sidney Parker
Series: Awaken My Darling [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117142
Comments: 11
Kudos: 39





	Memory

.

Charlotte came first.

From the moment Allison was born she was never alone... Never without her elder sister.

Since Charlotte’s death, Allison had felt… exposed. As if her whole being were a gaping wound, raw and just... undefended... from everything. She’d never felt like that before. She had always been the mediator or the voice of reason and never without her armor. Never without her defenses.

Allison had traveled with Sidney and the baby until they reached France. Sidney had wanted to stay with her, to reassure her safety but she had insisted on delivering the news herself. Alone and in person. Both knew that seeing Sidney would do no good for James, much less his wife’s lovechild. They decided together that he would wait for her with Kore at a nearby inn. “However long it takes.” He had said and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but for a moment there was deep and brief panic in her soul that she’d been seen. Things she’d only half admitted to herself and made a concentrated effort to keep from showing. No, when she’d looked hard at Sidney she knew there was only grief there. No hinting or secretive innuendos. Just an understanding that the great wrongs they had all done would take twice as long to right.

Sidney escorted her to the coach and Allison had piled in. Alone...

It hit her then, like a deep thud in the pit of her stomach. This was the first time she was truly alone. She didn’t look back at Sidney or the baby, her mind was too jumbled to accommodate the additional thoughts and feelings their visages would evoke. She stuffed her hands into the folds of her skirts, feeling distractedly at the blade tucked there, the one he’d meant for Charlotte but that she’d taken instead. She didn’t want to think about the implications of that exchange. Allison had always had sympathy for James and a great affection for him since the moment he’d introduced himself. All that way to win her sister’s heart and now… Now she had to tell him how the story had ended.

In her mind it had ended, it was all over. This was just the epilogue.

The chateau feels unreal when she sees it again, knowing it hadn’t really been very long at all since she was last there. And yet, literally everything else had changed since. It was too warm. The rough yellow stone walls covered in creeping rich green vines and peppered with little white flowers. She thought she smell freesia as she made her way up to walk. The door opened as she approached with her little case clutched in her hands and she half-expected to see her sister smiling back at her. Allison holds her breath as someone unrecognizable comes into focus. It’s a servant who then informs her that James hasn’t returned but that he usually appears before sundown and offers to let her wait inside.

She swallows the lump in her throat, irrationally afraid to go inside suddenly. “No… I’d like to wait out here for him. If that’s alright.” She receives a quizzical look and a sort of confused nod. Allison pays it no mind though. She knows she’s odd, plopping down unceremoniously on the icy stone bench beside the door and falling back into the even colder stone wall with a hard thud. 

Tears pricked at Allison’s eyes but she refused to let them fall. She was suddenly so angry as she stared at the trees swaying in the distance. The way their leaves twisted and danced on the breeze and the sun slowly cresting behind them. Dipping further and further down, turning the skies to warm swaths of oranges and yellows and pinks. It was too warm. To perfect of day or sunset. It didn't fit the news she brought. For moment she thought she'd rather sit outside in a downpour or howling wind. The universe seemed in a constant state of mocking her though. She'd come to accept that. The house, the climate, it was all like him. Warm and sweet and welcoming, even when she wished he wasn't. Wished that she could hate him or at the very least not feel the flutter of adoration whenever she saw or thought of him. She could not have him, and after everything he would not want her anyway. Her thoughts turned to her sister.

When Charlotte died she hadn’t just torn a hole in Sidney’s life, or even Kore’s- it felt as if she’d scorched and salted the earth behind her and simply left with no care or thought for the damage she'd inflicted.

Deep down Allison knew this couldn’t be further from the truth, but she didn’t care. She was overcome with the exhaustion of always being the sensible one and she'd been grappling with her own anger and resentment for weeks now. So with her sister no longer needing her- seeing as how she was dead and buried- Allison didn’t care to be rational or pragmatic. She just wanted to be angry. Anger was more tolerable than sadness, than all the self-pity, when compared to the quaking emptiness of loss. There was a sudden sound of shifting gravel under heavy footsteps and she was pulled immediately from her own reverie. She turned her head from the sky to the path ahead- knowing who it was before she saw him- James.

He stood before her, as handsome as the day she’d met him. When he’d barely even seen her in Charlotte’s shadow. Even more handsome than the day he married that sister.

Yet another tragedy Charlotte had left in her wake.

Allison had felt herself developing an affection for her brother-in-law before he’d ever claimed the title. But being so very logical and reasonable she knew he’d only ever love Charlotte and so she had devoted herself to being a good sister and a good friend. If only Sidney and Charlotte had exercised the same discipline.

 _But then... they were really in love and you were- are- just infatuated_ , she chastised herself.

James stopped midway up the path and looked at her confusedly. She knew how she looked, practically glaring at him as he walked toward her- unable to muster up even a hair of welcoming energy. Partly because the anger in her just seemed to mount with the passing minutes and partly because she did not want to lull James into any false sense of security. She was deeply aware that she was a harbinger of death and sadness and sorrow. She brought no good news, nothing that wouldn’t be a burden to him. And she hated herself for always being the one to lay it at his feet. 

James took in the sight of his sister-in-law as he came up the rest of the way, pushing up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows. She gave him a sort of pouted look as her eyes tracked him. He pushed back his blonde curls and smiled a little as he stopped in front of her, more out of nervousness than anything else. “I had to tell him,” He began defensively, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I couldn’t-”

“Charlotte’s dead.” She blurted out the words, unable to keep them contained for another moment as she pieced together what he’d been thinking. That she was angry with him for telling Sidney the truth. In truth, she’d always hoped he would, since Charlotte had not been able to do it herself and Allison had not been able to decide the right thing to do either. Honor her sister’s wishes- as she knew both men more intimately than Allison liked to think about- or take pity on either man with the truth. Unsure how the news would be received.

This was all Allison, however, charging forward with the truth. When there was no room for carefully calculated effort, the truth was her last stronghold. The very last coin in her purse.

It took a minute for James’ smile to fade, for comprehension to impress the reality of Allison’s words into his mind. He stared down at the other girl, the wind blowing soft tendrils of her dark hair around her face. A small face with sharp cheekbones and tired eyes, a sallow sort of look to her skin that hadn’t been there before. Her eyes no longer laughed and her shoulders no longer seemed capable of holding up her thin frame. A physical manifestation of the burden of truth that seemed her constant companion- perhaps even more than Charlotte had been.

Allison’s words seemed to pull the air from his lungs as he struggled to catch his breath. His hands flexed at his sides before he decided to sit down on the bench beside her. The cold stone bleeding through his clothes. Allison felt herself move slightly away, not to be cruel but lacking any trust in her own self-control in that moment, but he didn’t seem to notice. James stared off unfocused as he asked quietly, “The baby?”

“With Sidney.” She said in a clipped tone. “A girl. Perfectly healthy. Kore… Kore Allison Parker.” She grimaced at the middle name, her name. It made her a little nauseated to say it out loud. Sidney had told her as he wrote a letter to his lawyer from Italy before they left. That he wanted to honor her too, for the sacrifices she’d made for her sister- for everyone. Charlotte had given her daughter her first name, her middle name an honor to her aunt and her last name to forever declare her as Sidney’s and no one else’s. Allison hadn’t believed she deserved the reverence, even now. All she could feel was failure and a resentment she didn’t know where to place.

The name had felt like a seal, the slamming shut of a book with no happily ever after.

It was then that James buried his face in his hands and began to sob in earnest beside her. Allison pursed her lips and tucked her arms around herself tightly as she forced herself to look away. She would not comfort him, could not bring herself to reach out to him without feeling a little revolted with herself. He deserved comfort but right then she could not- should not- be the one to give it to him. There were too many thoughts swirling in her head, too many feelings in her chest she was struggling to keep contained.

She desired him. She always had, deep down. And until that moment Allison had refused to name it. But feeling him quake gently just inches to her left, her knuckles white and fisted into her ribcage. She could not touch his grief. She had no right. Everything about it would be wrong, no matter how pure the instinct to assuage his pain- she still wanted him, had still lied to him and deceived him.

“You're a widow now.” She croaked shakily after a few moments as she sensed his sorrow subsiding, if only a little. “You can go back to Sanditon, wherever you like. No one knows she is the child’s mother…” She bit her lip and scoffed mirthlessly, her attention fixated again by the swaying trees, a single tear escaping down her cheek that she rubbed it quickly and furiously away. “Everyone’s coming out of this socially unscathed it would seem. Except Eliza of course but she sort of had it coming in my opinion-”

She’d started to ramble, her voice beginning to rattle uncontrollably the more she spoke when two strong and heavy arms pulled around her suddenly and she found herself tucked into James’ warm embrace. To her relief he didn’t smell like horses, but like wind and grass and- she felt herself crumble suddenly and uncontrollably as he squeezed her tightly. She trembled and shook as she began to sob mutely against his chest. Allison struggled to pull away but to her surprise he held that much tighter and she found she cried that much harder. Her hands were little fists tucked into her ribcage as he held her, she could not stop him from comforting her but she could stop herself from pressing into him- from letting herself become more embroiled in emotions that simply could not be any more than she already was.

It felt like hours before her pain was spent. Before she realized the sun had gone down and they sat comforting each other in the growing moonlight. She inhaled deeply once to even herself out before lifting her hand to his bicep. “It's alright.” She whispered. Though she didn’t entirely know that it was true. James relaxed his grip on her and Allison pulled back to look at him. She shifted her sleeve down over the heel of her palm and patted his wet face dry- though she knew she must look far worse. She let herself memorize the look of him, perfectly still as he let her tend to him. The tumble of his golden curls and golden skin, such a contrast to her own translucency- as if she were constantly on the verge of disappearing. She let herself hold his face for a moment longer, keeping the barrier of her sleeve between their skin. Allison could still feel his warmth through it and imagined the sun embedded in his skin, in ever fiber and muscle. 

They said nothing as he stood and then reached back to take her hand in his free one. He asked a servant to prepare a bath and a room for her. The next day they ate breakfast together and she answered all of his questions as best she could. Mainly that the child would live with Sidney in London and she would go with them. Together she and Sidney had spun a complicated story. Allison would ask James to agree to say Charlotte died of an illness with no mention of another child- especially an illegitimate one. Only the four of them knew she’d ever become pregnant again and it would stay that way for as long as they could manage. They would deceive their families and friends and... she knew what she was asking. She knew it was too much.

Sidney would raise Kore as his own. He would admit to his infidelity and Kore would not have legitimacy, there was no way around it. He could still admit to being her true father and ensure that she would never be taken from him, even if it was known that she was illegitimate- he felt confident his fortune would make it a minor obstacle of her future. The money would save her though. Save them all... and Sidney had hated every piece of it. As for Allison, not wanting to return home to Willingdon or be a burden on her brother-in-law, she had offered to become a companion and governess of sorts to Sidney’s daughter. A kindness born of their deep friendship.

They all agreed- James included- that none of them would return to Sanditon. That there was too much history there to be lived past or undone. That if they would return it would be resigning themselves to live as ghosts in the shadows of their mistakes.

Later, as he waits with her for the coach he pushes a parcel toward her. Confusion blooms softly over her features and Allison unfurls it to see a penciled portrait of her sister. There she was, etched in graceful black lines. Allison felt her heart drop a little, that face looking away with the ghost of a smile. It struck her again how Charlotte was really gone, it wasn’t a dream. It was all very real and they were just marching on through the aftermath.

Before she could ask, James explained, “Neither of us ever had portraits done but I used to sketch her from time to time.” Back when they were in love and she was still his whole world, Allison thought. Before everything fell apart. “There was a moment when I was angry with her after she left and I sort of destroyed them all. I did this one last night from memory- for the girl. When she asks what her mother looked like… she’ll know.”

She reaches out to James one last time, pulling him to her in an embrace and tucking her chin into his shoulder. She feels his brief hesitation before his arms wind all the way around her like vines and she wonders for a moment if she’d acted too rashly, if she’d made a mistake. But then, she feels him exhale almost completely and his body kind of just relaxed into hers. She felt her heart crack a little under the weight of knowing that, if she’d only met him first… Charlotte might still be alive.

A voice nagged in her mind again, all sensible and logical. James’ heart wasn’t a race track, it wasn’t as though the first one there won his heart. No, something about her sister spoke to him and he’d loved her for it. In the distance she can see the coach lobbing over the hill. She eyes it over his shoulder, weary like a beetle crawling over a leaf, apprehensive and guardedly watching it inch closer and closer to take her away.

“Promise you won't ever forgive me.” She whispers before untangling herself from him, stepping back to give him space and fighting the urge to continue to cling to him. When she meets his gaze he is frowning in confusion. She thought she could shoulder the burden of lies for the rest of her life, but in that moment he was too kind. More than she knew she deserved. "I lied to you. I helped her deceive you... after the miscarriage she was falling apart before my very eyes and she was desperate... She asked me to help her to meet with Sidney in secret and so I did. I don't know that I ever believed she was right, only that she would proceed either way. And if she did so alone she would hurt you." She took a deep breath as he continued to stare at her with a look of indecision. "I only ever intended to lessen the pain of everyone involved. Do not look on me kindly, James. Do not remember me fondly. I have taken much from you." She felt the coach stop just behind them as it waited, the driver called out but neither responded. And she waited what felt like years as James stared at her silently. His blue eyes hard and piercing, accusatory in manner that made her feel a wave of shame. She welcomed it, believed she deserved every painful sting his ire could inflict. "I vow that I will never darken your doorstep again... I only hope that I have not burdened you further, but perhaps that you are now free. Knowing all the crimes that have been laid against you.

The driver calls out again and Allison makes it a point not to look back at James as she climbs into the coach. She can’t… but she can feel her mind embossing details of him in her memory. Even if in that memory he hated her.

The scent of soap.

The soft brush of his well-worn coat.

The even sound of his breathing as his workers’ arms and artists’ hands had held her close.

At least now he’d washed his hands of the Heywood women and she would have to find it in herself to let him go.

.

**Author's Note:**

> In regards to the length of this work, so far I am at 5 very short chapters. This is tentative to change, we're just gonna see how it goes. To anyone concerned this will be a Happily Ever After, just not a super fluffy one.
> 
> ps. i know i'm using the american spelling of her name. i'm sorry, its just easier for me that way.


End file.
